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Agency Seeks Again to Delist Great Lakes Wolves

Associated PressThe Fish and Wildlife Service says that gray wolves are thriving in the western Great Lakes.

The population of gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region is healthy enough that it no longer merits protection under the Endangered Species Act, the federal Fish and Wildlife said Friday.

The proposed rule change, which is likely to be challenged by environmentalists, states that gray wolves are thriving in the region, with more than 4,000 counted in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

“Wolves in the western Great Lakes have achieved recovery,” Rowan Gould, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s acting director, said in a statement.

Once federal protection is ended, individual states would be required to adopt management plans to ensure that wolf populations remained healthy.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, praised the proposal. “The focus here is to restore balance to the natural habitat and I’m glad this important first step has been taken,” she was quoted as saying by The Minneapolis Post.

The agency will take public comment on the proposed rule change for 60 days, giving ample time for opponents to prepare a legal challenge. A previous attempt by federal officials to strip protections from the wolves was stymied by lawsuits by environmental groups.

The agency is bracing for another legal battle on the issue, Laura Ragan, a wildlife biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service, told The St. Paul Pioneer Press.

“No matter what we put out there, they probably will challenge it,” Ms. Ragan said. “My hope is we have come up with something that is solid and can withstand that litigation.”

The proposal comes only a few days after Congress took the controversial step of removing gray wolf populations in Montana and Idaho from the endangered species list. It was the first time a species had been dropped from the list through the direct intervention of federal legislators, and the decision was criticized by conservationists as a triumph of politics over science.

Unlike the delisting proposed for the Great Lakes wolves, the removal of federal protections for the Idaho and Montana wolves cannot be overturned by a federal judge.

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